Share a little of that human touch: The marketable ordinariness of security and emergency agencies’ social media efforts

Abstract

Today, communication specialists working for public security and rescue services increasingly use superficially personalized content, or apply ‘a human touch’, to promote their organizations in social media. To theoretically capture and understand such processes, the concept of marketable ordinariness is proposed. This refers to how the communication relates to everyday conceptions – through feelings, humor, cool vehicles or pet animals – and is made marketable, suggesting there is a promotional logic at work. Drawing on appraisal analysis of interviews with communication specialists, the article examines this strategy’s discursive elements, including the semiosis of simplicity, emotion, promotion, storytelling and quantitative success, pointing critically to the ways they aid marketization – the process whereby promotional culture encompasses increasingly more sectors and areas of life. It then discusses a number of implications. First, the public sector employees’ alignment with both informational and promotional values and communication may give rise to an authenticity paradox, leaving everyone else wondering when each standard applies. Second, a stronger promotional identity implies compromised professionalism, favoring certain abilities and choices and underutilizing communication efforts that (a) do not pursue big publicity and (b) involve any issue suspected to be challenging for the organization and mainstream culture.